Holiday Hat Trick Read online

  It was never just this once, though. Mitch had always taken care of things for me, for almost as long as I could remember. He walked into the room, and everything that had seemed overwhelming and earth-shattering and unmanageable suddenly slowed down and settled into order. He made it possible for me to breathe.

  In fact, until he’d walked through the door a few minutes ago, I hadn’t realized that I’d stopped breathing. How long had I gone without filling my lungs? I couldn’t even remember, which probably said a lot.

  I must have stood there staring for too long because he closed the distance between us. Before I could prepare myself, he lifted one hand to my cheek. It was all I could do not to press into him, to beg for more of his touch, but I somehow refrained.

  With the tip of his thumb, he brushed against my skin. “Sticky,” he said quietly.

  “Applesauce,” I replied, mentally berating myself for the flutters of awareness and need racing through my veins.

  He kept his eyes locked on mine as he put the tip of his thumb into his mouth and licked it clean. “So it is. Go get a shower, Mia.”

  I raced down the hall, not because I was in a hurry to clean up, but because I didn’t trust myself not to push up onto my tiptoes and kiss him, and that would be the worst thing I could possibly do.

  IT WAS AMAZING how much better I felt after taking a ten-minute shower without worrying about what was happening with Marley, even though having Mitch in my house was the reason for me being able to do so.

  The thing was, I still loved him. I would probably always love him. I’d resigned myself to that fact during the tense, insanely stressful months when we were going through the divorce. There wasn’t a moment that went by when I was in his presence that my heart didn’t scamper. There wasn’t a day that went by when we were apart that I didn’t think about him, miss him, wish I could be with him. Maybe someday those things would ease at least a little bit, but probably not. Marley was too much of a reminder of Mitch and all the things I loved about him. She had his smile. She had his big, expressive brown eyes. She wouldn’t exist if not for him.

  What made it worse was that I knew he still loved me, too. That I was hurting him. I never wanted to hurt him, but I just didn’t see any way around it. I’d completely lost myself somewhere along the way while we were married, and I was only now starting to find myself again.

  My whole life had been wrapped up in Mitch. My friends became the wives of his teammates. When he got traded, I had been forced to leave them behind and start up a new set of friendships with new women, and I never knew how long I might be with them before the next trade or change of teams. I hadn’t had a job; it was too hard to get and keep a position when I never knew when I might have to pick up and move across the country, or even from one country to another. Everything in my life had slowly but surely revolved around Mitch, until I didn’t even know who I was anymore other than Mitchell Quincey’s wife.

  I couldn’t keep going like that. The only way I’d been able to come up with to stop the spiral was to end the marriage, much as it hurt me. But now I was figuring out who I was again, or at least who I wanted to be. I’d been working alongside a local photographer, trying to hone the skills I’d started to form when I’d been in high school. I’d picked up some work from the local paper, too, photographing a few community events and the like. I was really coming to love photography, and I was experimenting with it more and more each day, finding a voice. Finding my voice. That was something I’d lost along the line, too. I knew it was never Mitch’s intention to take any of that from me. And really, it wasn’t his fault. It had just happened. I’d allowed it to happen. And now I was undoing all of the things I’d done.

  With Marley in the mix, leaving him had hurt me more than it would have otherwise.

  It killed me that he wasn’t able to spend much time with her. He was an amazing father, and she adored him. But how could they be together more? If I lived with him, I’d be in the same situation I’d been in when we were married. She was so little, and he was always on the road and moving from one team to another. I didn’t have a good solution.

  I blow-dried my hair, put on some clothes, and even brushed on a light dusting of makeup—something I hadn’t done in months. There was no need for me to look presentable when I was the one behind the camera, after all. I just had to snap pictures. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was doing it today. I mean, I was just going to take Marley over to my parents’ house for the holiday, and my family knew what I looked like without makeup on. Nevertheless, here I was, getting myself all dolled up.

  I refused to believe it had anything to do with Mitch showing up at my door, even though somewhere deep down inside me, I was sure that was the case.

  When I returned to the living room, it was to find Mitch on the floor playing with Marley and Inigo, the mess of my tree fully sorted out, and his buddies loading out all of the gym equipment that had been filling the room I intended to use for my photography studio. I moved out of Zach and Jason’s way as they carried an exercise bike toward the front door.

  Mitch looked up and smiled at me, and my knees went weak. I put my hand on the wall, trying to strike a casual pose that I doubted he’d believe for even a second. He knew me too well.

  “You look good enough to eat,” he said once the guys had made it outside.

  “Mitch, please.” I couldn’t take him going all flirty with me right now.

  “Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry, though. He looked like a man who was doing exactly what he meant to do. “Listen, I’ve got a meeting with my lawyer at ten, but after that I was hoping to spend the rest of the day with Marley.”

  What? He hadn’t bothered to let me know he’d be in town, and now he was going to try to take Marley? On Christmas Eve? “Mom and Dad are expecting us at their place,” I said, once again sounding even more put-out than I felt. He hardly got to spend time with our daughter, but I’d made plans, and my family would be disappointed if we didn’t come.

  “They can see her any day they want. I’m here now.”

  “Well you should have called, then. Clearly these two knew you were going to be here,” I said, nudging my chin in the direction of his friends coming back in for more.

  They kept their heads down as they shuffled past me.

  “You’re right. I should have called.” He glanced down at Marley, saw that she was reaching for Inigo’s tail again, and deftly distracted her with a ball. When he met my gaze again, his was filled with anguish. “I just can’t stand talking to you without being able to really talk to you, Mia.”

  I had to turn away to get myself under control or else I’d start crying in front of him. Turning didn’t help, though. The tears started up, no matter how hard I tried to force them down.

  “Fuck,” he muttered beneath his breath. “Don’t cry. I hate it when you cry and I know I’m the reason why.”

  I shook my head. He wasn’t the reason I was crying. I was. I batted a hand at my tears.

  He was suddenly behind me, his hands on my upper arms. I’d never heard him move, but there he was, his warmth beckoning me to take a step back, to lean into his embrace.

  “Baby…”

  “Please don’t,” I forced through my lips. If he called me baby again, if he pulled me back into his arms, I knew I would collapse into him. It wouldn’t just be physical. All it would take was a few more words, a couple of touches, and all my resolve would disappear. Everything I’d been working toward for these few months, trying to figure out who I wanted to be, would go up in flames and leave nothing but the shell of a person I’d become the last few years.

  I hadn’t even realized what the issue was until we’d separated. I’d just known that I felt lost while we were together. But once I was standing on my own again, once I wasn’t defined solely by the man I was married to, I had finally understood.

  Mitch gave my arms a gentle squeeze, but he let me go and backed away, and I almost started crying harder from the loss.
r />   If I’d known he was going to show up today, I could have at least attempted to mentally prepare myself for his presence. I could have built up my line of defenses, tried to shut down my emotional response to him. But I hadn’t known.

  I sniffled and crossed over to the dining room table, pulling a tissue from the box I kept there. I blew my nose and dried my eyes. A few grunts and bangs signaled the reemergence of Mitch’s friends with more of his gym equipment. I took the time required for them to head out the front door again to compose myself. Then I turned to face the love of my life, slightly more fortified than I’d been before.

  He was on the sofa, Marley perched on his knee while he bounced her up and down like she was riding a horse. He was looking at me, though. “I’m sorry—”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “I just wasn’t expecting you, and I’m all thrown off my game, and I’m acting like a shrew. You don’t deserve that.”

  “And I should have called.”

  With Marley otherwise occupied, Inigo started chasing his tail in the middle of the room, sparking an infectious giggle from Marley right as the guys returned for the last load. We all laughed along with her for a moment, and then Zach and Jason disappeared down the hall again.

  I crossed over and took a seat next to Mitch on the couch before I lost my nerve. “You can still talk to me, you know.”

  His expression turned serious when he looked at me, and he shook his head. “I can’t. Because if I start really, truly talking to you again, telling you all the things going on in my life, I’ll end up telling you how much I still love you, how much I need you, how often I think about you, how I want my family back. Then I’ll beg you to take me back and try to put all of the bullshit between us in the past, and that won’t do either of us any good, baby. That’ll just make it hurt worse every time you shoot me down.”

  And it would hurt me every time I had to shoot him down. I’d be willing to go through that if I thought it would help him, though. A new hole opened up in my heart with every instance of pain I caused him. Right now, that organ had to look like an old crocheted blanket, and some of those holes kept widening. His heart likely looked much the same, and that was because of me. Because I had lost every part of me in him. Because I didn’t know how to be me and still be his wife.

  The guys carried out the last of the weight equipment. I allowed my gaze to follow them to the door because it was easier than looking at the anguish etching deep lines all over Mitch’s face. He let out a rumble of frustration as the door closed.

  “So you won’t let me have today with Marley, then?” he asked after a protracted silence filled with electrical currents passing between us and seeming to bounce off the walls. “What about tomorrow? I have to fly back the next day.”

  Christmas Day. I’d planned to spend tonight and tomorrow at my parents’ house. My siblings, Seth and Grace, would be there with their spouses and kids. We were going to have a family holiday. But how could I keep Marley from Mitch when he saw her so very little?

  I chewed my lip as I tried to come up with a solution.

  “Fuck, Mia. I know I should have called, but—”

  “Why don’t you come stay at Mom and Dad’s house with us?” I suggested before I had time to think better of it. Then I wished I could take the words back, but they were already out there, floating in the emptiness we shared.

  He stared at me with a combination of pain and longing and something else I couldn’t define drawing his brows together into a single line.

  “I shouldn’t have suggested that,” I rushed to say. “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “Will your parents be okay with that? And Seth and Grace?”

  Oh God. He was really considering it, then. I needed to learn to think things through before I let them fly out of my mouth.

  “They aren’t mad at you,” I said cautiously. “They know I’m the one to blame. They still love you just like they always have, and they always will because you’re Marley’s father.”

  “Yeah.” That single word hit me like a boulder dropping from the sky. “They love me. Marley loves me. Everyone loves me. Everyone but you.”

  I still love you, too, almost came out, but I held it back in the nick of time. It wouldn’t do him any good to know that I had never stopped loving him or that I probably never would. That would only rip him to shreds and leave him more confused than ever.

  Instead, I said, “So will you come?”

  He picked Marley up and flipped her upside down so her head was hanging just over the floor, swinging her from side to side like a pendulum until she was laughing so hard she almost couldn’t breathe. It was perfect. It was exactly the kind of moment I wanted Marley to have with her father, the sort of childhood she deserved. But I’d taken it away from her. I was keeping both of them from having this kind of relationship all the time. He typically only had long enough breaks to come back to Manitoba during the off-season, and I couldn’t bear to take her to Portland and be thrust back into the life I’d just left.

  “Yeah. I’ll come after I see my lawyer.” He sounded resigned to the idea rather than excited about it, but he couldn’t possibly dread spending the next few days with me more than I did. Every bone in my body feared capitulation, that I wouldn’t be able to stick to my guns and keep myself from letting him back in. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I’d told him my family still loved him and always would.

  They had supported my decision even if they didn’t understand it. Just like everyone else in this town, they thought Mitch and I were meant to be together. They’d be thrilled to have him with us for the holiday, and for all I knew, they might try to go behind my back and finagle ways to get us back together.

  I was going to have to be on my guard at every moment. It was going to be miserable, so for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I felt a strange sense of elation.

  I WAS IN a shitty mood when I left my lawyer’s office. He was willing to file the joint custody paperwork for me and send it to the courts, but he’d repeated time and again that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. The chances of anything changing were slim to none for a number of reasons. I hadn’t been offered a contract extension by the Storm as of yet; I didn’t have any sort of no-trade or no-movement clause and likely never would, no matter what team I played for—I wasn’t that sort of player; I worked in a non-traditional field with non-traditional hours, making childcare difficult; even if all of the other things weren’t issues, I still had to travel frequently with the team, and I couldn’t bring my one-year-old daughter along with me; and last but definitely not least, judges weren’t inclined to grant overnight visitation to the non-resident parent until the child was at least two, and often not even at that point. To put it in simpler terms, it was likely a waste of my money and my lawyer’s time to even make the petition.

  I tried to push all that aside and get into a better frame of mind while taking a cab from his office over to the Jennings’s house—Mia’s parents—where she’d told me to meet them when I was done. I still couldn’t believe I was going. I had to be half out of my mind to show up at my ex-in-laws’ place for Christmas, but it had seemed like the only option I would have to spend time with Marley, short of causing a huge scene that would only leave everyone involved with hurt feelings. There were more than enough hurt feelings going around already. I didn’t need to add to that right now.

  But since I was going to be with my little girl, I needed to get my act together, lighten up my mood, and do my best to enjoy it. She may only be a year old, but she was old enough to pick up on tension and arguments. If anyone should know that, it was me, considering the way my parents had fought while I was a kid. I wanted Marley to have the best Christmas ever, at least until the next one. I didn’t ever want her to know there was tension between her parents. She shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of stress.

  The cab pulled up in front of the house where I’d spent countless nights sleeping on the couch when Mom and Dad’s fig
hting had gotten to be too much to handle. The driver stopped in front of the freshly shoveled drive. I passed him a twenty, tried to brush away all the bad memories, and got out. Zach had brought my bag over here and dropped it off sometime while I was in with my lawyer, so even if Mia and Marley hadn’t shown up yet, the Jennings family would at least know I was coming. My arrival wouldn’t take them completely by surprise.

  The front door opened before I’d even reached the porch, and Mrs. Jennings rushed out to pull me into a hug.

  “Merry Christmas, Mitch,” she said, stretching up on her toes to plant a kiss on my cheek, patting her hands on my biceps as though to ensure I was real. She was the spitting image of Mia, only with a bit of silver in her blond hair and a few small lines around her eyes and mouth that deepened when she smiled—which happened often. “I almost didn’t believe it when Mia told me, but here you are.”

  “Here I am,” I replied, more than a little embarrassed by both her reaction to seeing me and how warm and gushy it made me feel.

  She shivered, and I realized she’d come out wearing nothing more than a sweater for an outer layer—not nearly enough in weather like this.

  “Let’s get you inside and warm you up,” I said, tucking her hand in the crook of my arm and leading her up the steps.

  We’d barely gotten over the threshold before the warm familiarity and much-missed insanity of Mia’s family washed over me. Everyone was in the living room, it seemed. Seth and his wife, Janet, and their two kids; Grace and her husband, Brian, and two children; Mr. Jennings; Grandma Molly, the last living of Mia’s grandparents; and right in the center of all the hustle and bustle, were Mia and Marley, with the cat slinking around and sniffing everyone. I guess they’d decided to bring him along, too, although I imagined he would have preferred some time to himself instead of being surrounded by all these kids. Those very kids squealed at my appearance, and in an instant I was a human jungle gym while they competed with each other for hugs. Seth and Brian came over and slapped me on the back, and Grace brought me a hot cup of coffee while Janet disengaged a couple of the kids from me so I could breathe. I felt as though I had come home.